WORK DISCUSSED IN THIS ESSAY Jon Cowan and Rob Nelson, Revolution X (Penguin Books, 1994) Neil Howe and Bill Strauss, 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail? (Vintage Books, 1993) Eric Liu, ed., Next: Young American Writers on the Next Generation (W.W. Norton, 1994) Paul Loeb, Generation at the Crossroads (Rutgers University Press, 1994) O n a blustery March day in 1993, as the worst blizzard in a hundred years descended on Washington, D.C., a small group of young people in their twenties convened at a downtown hotel, worried that something as uncontrollable as the weather might postpone their long- planned retreat. They were originally scheduled to meet at Harper's Ferry, chosen for its proximity to the capital and symbolic value as the site of John Brown's slave rebellion. But, when the snowfall closed most roads, the group made a last-minute switch to another site redolent with symbolism: Hickory Hill. The Kennedy clan's storied Virginia home--volunteered by aspiring youth politician...